


No One

by lemon_and_chai



Series: Requited [2]
Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-02
Updated: 2004-10-02
Packaged: 2017-11-26 10:50:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/649752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_and_chai/pseuds/lemon_and_chai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short monologue fic by Fuji, kind of a sequel to "Time", but only really in terms of style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One

I'm sure you're all familiar by now with my infamous expression. A smooth, close mouthed smile and two tight, turned up eyes that rarely seem to open.

I'm sure you all know by now my affinity for sadistic amusement, my peculiar taste for toying with my opponents, my love to not only destroy but completely humiliate my enemies.

I'm sure you've read about it, if not in this fanfiction than in another. It's convenient to be the reader, isn't it? Rather than one of the characters, that is.

Since none of them can see it.

* * *

No one can see through the mask, unless I let them take a peek.

I'm not even that great of an actor, but no one even tries to see through it, though maybe they do give an occasional curious glance. Mostly they just think about themselves, or someone else important to them. Never _me_.

When someone gets close to me, I get excited. I begin to talk to him more and more, I try to pour myself into him, lift my thoughts and plant them into his mind, make him see the world the way I do. I did that with Yuuta - I still do, I love to talk to him - but in the end, I only pushed him away. He got more and more annoyed with me, until finally he left.

They're all like that. All my friends. As long as I keep my distance, let them grow close but keep the mask between us, they'll stay by me, and let me lean on them. But as soon as I begin to shift my weight, my real weight, upon the friendly shoulder, it vanishes... as soon as I grow close, they become irritated, annoyed at the me who is relying on them, more than they are relying on me... and eventually they leave. And I am left alone with only bitterness.

After enough of such experience, I'm beginning to learn...and my mask grows more intricate, more thick and difficult to penetrate. And the real me beneath grows more longing for attachment. Yet the strings to keep the mask in place are tight, and now even I have trouble removing them. I suppose it is because I have grown afraid.

I would rather not be loved, than be rejected.

I come up to the roof quite often. It's quite, and humanless, something like a wasteland to bury oneself away from the rest of humanity. I would rather be by myself then alone in a crowd. Except today it is occupied, by a most unexpected figure - the small, shriveled form of our newly emitted regular.

Back rolled over, with his head buried in his knees and his arms wrapped around his legs, he probably hasn't noticed my presence. The stifled sobs and mixed-in sniffles confirm his distraction.

I see that beyond the metal looped fence he sits near, the tennis courts are in clear view, and a certain spiky haired tennis player is thrashing two fellow second years playing against him, emphasizing his obviously terrible mood.

It isn't too difficult to figure out the problem.

"Why don't you confess?"

I am already next to him, my usually genial smile turning into more of an omniscient smirk. I draw my head close to his, my lips almost brushing against his fine ebony hair. He doesn't seem startled, meaning he did notice me entering from the doorway but chose to ignore me and focus on his crying, as if pretending I wasn't there would make it true. How like him.

Finally, he acknowledges me, if only by drawing his knees tighter to his chest.

"I'm scared," he whimpers quietly. "I don't know what to do."

My eyelids fall half open, and my smile spreads indulgently.

"It's simple," I whisper, tickling the young boy's inner ear with my breath. "Just get rid of everything you're afraid to loose."

Amused, my smile slips back easily into place, but deep inside me runs the thought...

_I should take my own advice._

But Ryouma can't see that. He probably believes I already have, that my mask's very existence signifies my complete and utter detachment. Just like everyone else.

Everyone, even Tezuka. He thinks no one has noticed... he thinks _I_ haven't noticed... the faint, almost untraceable flush that graces his cheek whenever I grow near, the rising of his chest which almost doubles in rate and intensity, the light, cold beads of sweat that string across his upper lip and forehead.

I recognize the illness of infatuation... I suffer from it myself. But Tezuka's never noticed, or he would have made some kind of move.

That striking metal across my chest... that piercing feeling I receive to varying degrees of laceration... it's no different from anyone else's, yet everyone seems to think I'm different, I'm special, the tensai, the genius.

They leave me to my smile, to my closed upturned eyes, to my mask, as if this is how I _want_ to be.

No one understands me, not even the one I care for most.

I am truly and utterly alone.


End file.
